#NAMESHAVEQUALITIES: Fictional characters whose name contain their qualities

Do names matter? Would a rose by any other name – say, ‘cactus’ or ‘sand’ – make it smell as sweet? Would Gabbar Singh – ‘gabbar’ meaning arrogant, haughty in Hindi – be as menacing a character if he was named Shyam Singh?
A charactonym is the term for the naming of fictional characters to suggest distinctive traits they possess even before you get to be acquainted with them.If you can remember characters – from books or films or even songs -- do leave their name here, along with a line about the character, and how name and the character’s quality connect. Here’s 10 names we dug up to give you a push to add more in this #Names-Have-Qualities list:
1. Robin Hood

Robin Hood, the English folk hero-outlaw, first found mentioned in William Langland’s Middle English poem Piers Plowman (c. 1370) ‘stole from the rich and gave to the poor.’ His name refers to his ‘hod’ or hood, which protected his identity while robbing, the same way a ‘hoodie’ today is perceived in many precincts with criminal behaviour.
2. Cuthbert Calculus

Cuthbert Calculus (original French name Tryphon Tournesol), ‘Calculus’ suggesting mathematical complexity and other-worldliness, describing Hergé’s ‘mad’ scientist’s absent-mindedness, first encountered in the 1943 Tintin adventure, Red Rakham’s Treasure.
3. Dracula

Dracula, in Romanian, ‘dracul’ means the devil, derived from the Latin ‘draco’ meaning dragon. Dracula meaning the ‘son of dracul’. Bram Stoker used this name in his 1897 novel to conjure up a devilish beast-like entity based on Vlad Tepes, the 15th century ruler of Wallachia (in today’s Romania) who was a member of the Christian order of the dragon against the invading Turks.
4. Professor Hijibijbij

Professor Hijibijbij, the Bengali word ‘hijibiji’ meaning scribbles or undecipherable scrawls, the character in the same-named 1979 story by Satyajit Ray about a ‘mad’ plastic surgeon whose name is given in the story (from a mutant-hybrid character in a poem by Sukumar Ray, Satyajit’s father) to suggest his sinister experiments to create hybrid creatures ‘scribbled’ from various animal parts.
5. Cacofonix

Cacofonix, (original French Asurancetourix) among many of Goscinny and Uderzo’s characters with names that instantly portray their chief quality, the cacophonous bard first encountered in Asterix the Gaul (1959) is the most obvious. Others like the chief Vitalstatistix’s wife Impedimenta (‘impediment’ to all her husband’s actions), the druid Getafix (with his ‘drugs-making’ talent), the village eldest Geriatrix (wizened geriatric, that he is) are also obviously named.
6. Malvolio

Malvolio, meaning ‘ill will’ in Italian, the pompous, authoritarian and malevolent character in William Shakespeare’s c. 1602 play Twelfth Night.
7. Bahadur

Bahadur, meaning ‘brave’ in Hindi (and other Indian non-English languages), this comic book hero who first appeared in 1976 took on dacoits at a time when the Chambal Valley in the borderlands of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh was terrorised by these bandits.
8. Voldemort

Voldemort, from the French ‘voler de mort’ (flying from death), the vengeful avatar of the more well-established figure of the scythe-wielding Death, is the main antagonist in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels (1997-2007).
9. Goopy Gayne

Goopy Gayne, the name suggesting ‘gaan’, song in Bengali, a character from Upendrakishore Raychowdhury’s 1903 children’s story Goopy Gayne, Bagha Byne, who sings terribly. He was depicted in Upendrakishore’s grandson Satyajit Ray’s films, Goopy Gyne, Bagha Byne (1969) and Hirok Rajar Deshe (1980)
10. Holly Golightly

Holly Golightly, Holiday Golightly, her full name perfectly describing who she is and how she lives: lightly, as if life was one big holiday, main character of Truman Capote’s 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, made into the 1961 film by Blake Edwards with Audrey Hepburn bringing the simple country girl turned New York society girl to life.
We leave you with a visual clue of another character whose name says everything about him. You know him?